UN chief regrets US pullout from migration compact talks
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed regret Monday that the United States is ending its participation in negotiations for a Global Compact on Migration aimed at strengthening governance of the movement of people across borders.
The U.S. Mission to the United Nations informed Guterres over the weekend that numerous provisions in the New York Declaration that launched the process for a compact “are inconsistent with U.S. immigration and refugee policies and the Trump administration’s immigration principles.”
In the declaration, all 193 U.N. member states — including the U.S. under President Barack Obama — said no one country can manage international migration on its own.
They agreed to launch a process leading to the adoption of a global compact in 2018.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Monday that the U.S. withdrawal is “a decision which we regret, but there’s still plenty of time for U.S. engagement on this issue.”
“The decision should not disrupt what we see as a clear, unanimous outcome of the New York Declaration for such a global compact,” he said, stressing that it will not be legally binding but will be “grounded in international cooperation and respect of national interests.”
The U.S. announcement came ahead of Monday’s opening of a stock-taking meeting in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on the compact. It follows five regional meetings, hearings and civil society and national consultations around the world.
Dujarric said Louse Arbour, the U.N. special representative for international migration, told the meeting “there is nothing in there to contradict a state’s sovereign right, subject to international and domestic law, to manage who enters and stays within its borders.”
He said the Canadian jurist told delegates that “the success of the global compact will rest on” getting the maximum number of countries to buy in politically and morally, and “a willingness to enhance cooperation at the regional and international levels.”